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Law enforcement agencies across the UK successfully lobbied to deploy a facial recognition system known to be discriminatory against females, youths, and members of minority ethnic backgrounds, following complaints that a less biased version produced fewer investigative leads.

How the System Works

UK forces utilize the police national database (PND) to carry out searches using historical face recognition. This procedure entails comparing a “probe image” of a suspect against a database of over 19 million mugshots to find potential matches.

Admitted Bias

The UK interior ministry conceded last week that the system was biased. This acknowledgment followed a review by the government's National Physical Laboratory determined it incorrectly matched Black and Asian people and females at significantly higher rates than Caucasian males. The ministry stated it “took steps on the findings”.

“This raises the question of whether facial recognition only becomes effective if users accept discrimination in ethnicity and gender. Operational ease is a poor argument for overriding basic freedoms.”

Known Issue

Official papers show that this bias has been recognized for over twelve months. Furthermore, law enforcement lobbied to reverse an initial decision that was intended to address the problem.

Police bosses were informed of the system's bias in late 2024. The government-ordered NPL review found the system was had a higher probability to suggest incorrect matches for photos of women, individuals of Black ethnicity, and those under 40 years old.

A Reversed Decision

In reaction, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) mandated that the accuracy setting required for potential matches be raised to a point where the disparity was significantly reduced.

However, this directive was overturned the next month after forces complained that the adjusted system was producing a lower number of “investigative leads”. NPCC documents show the stricter setting cut the proportion of queries that yielded possible identifications from over half to a mere 14%.

Severe Disparities

Although the Home Office and NPCC refused to say what setting is currently used, the recent independent review found the system could generate incorrect matches for women of Black heritage nearly a hundred times more often than for white women at specific configurations.

The ministry stated on these results: “Our evaluation identified that in a limited set of circumstances the software is has a greater tendency to incorrectly include some demographic groups in its search results.”

Balancing Utility and Fairness

Outlining the impact of the temporary raise to the system's accuracy setting, the police records state: “This adjustment significantly reduces the impact of bias across protected characteristics of ethnicity, age and gender but had a significant negative impact on police efficiency”. The papers add that forces complained that “a once effective tactic now delivered outcomes of limited benefit”.

Wider Implementation Proposals

Meanwhile, the UK administration has opened a two-and-a-half-month consultation on its proposals to expand the use of facial recognition technology. The minister for police Sarah Jones has described the tool as the “biggest breakthrough since DNA matching”.

Expert and Oversight Concerns

Abimbola Johnson, chair of the advisory panel for the police race action plan, commented: “We observed very little consideration through race action plan meetings of the technology deployment even with clear relevance with the strategy's goals.

“This disclosure demonstrate yet again that the anti-racism commitments policing has made via the race action plan are not being translated into wider practice. Independent assessments have cautioned that new technologies are being rolled out in a context where racial disparities, inadequate oversight and faulty information gathering continue to exist.

“All deployment of facial recognition must adhere to strict national standards, be subject to external review, and prove it diminishes rather than compounds ethnic bias.”

Official Statement

A government representative said: “We takes the findings of the study with utmost gravity and we have implemented changes. A updated software has been externally evaluated and acquired, which has no statistically significant bias. It will be trialled early next year and will be undergo further assessment.

“The foremost aim is protecting the public. This gamechanging technology will support police to apprehend and prosecute offenders. There is human involvement in every step of the process and no further action would be taken without specialist personnel meticulously examining the results.”